Not even the cheapest iPhones could help Apple claw back ground lost to Samsung - whose smartphone gear has now amassed more than twice the market share of the iPhone.
The smartphone market expanded 46.5 per cent in Q2 with more than 225 million units shipped worldwide, data from beancounters Gartner showed.
However it was …

Re: anyone know the breakdown

Re: anyone know the breakdown

The cheap Samsung Galaxy mini is a piece of crap and an embarrassment to the brand. The trouble is Samsung puts out so many different phones under the Galaxy brand and some are good, while some are terrible. So many sizes, different configurations for the same phone in different markets, a terrible twist in Android too. Apple can't and won't compete with that - the legacy of Job's tenure is simple choices. They will likely stop making the iPhone 4 and 4S when the 5C is available to rationalise their product line and make a good profit. That's the real question - Apple makes good money on all their devices and can they continue to do that with falling margins? The majority of smartphone manufacturers make next to nothing on theirs, just Samsung and Apple grabbing the lion's share of profits. Seems like Samsung is Microsoft this time around and Apple is Apple again.

Re: anyone know the breakdown

It is possible that Apple's next release will shake things up a bit. On the one hand, a revamped UI should attract more sales, but on the other hand cheaper models (should they eventuate) will invite comparison with more capable Android phones in the same price range. It will be mildly interesting to watch.

On the whole, I suspect the decline of Apple will continue. Such is the circle of commerce.

Re: anyone know the breakdown

Re: anyone know the breakdown

While it's possible Apple's next release will shake things up, years of Intel's next processor always being the one to unseat ARM, the next Windows Phone to be the one that storms the market, next year to be the year of the Linux desktop, etc, I've come to the conclusion that tech forum commenters have a very skewed idea of how quickly these things change.

Re: anyone know the breakdown

@mutatedwombat

Decline of Apple. No.

Yes Android is doing very well. It is a very capable mobile operating system. However I'm getting a bit sick of this The Register "Peak Apple" bullshit, mostly because their coverage is so partisan and well, ignorant (I'm not referring to your comment BTW, which is quite reasonable).

The Register's trolling for responses from iOS users and continual playing to the gallery of Android toting sys-admin centric Register audience has left many of the more closed minded Fandroids without any real understanding of what's going on and the very real and significant subtleties in the market dynamic and as a self confessed iOS obsessive that's just well, annoying.

What follows is an unashamedly one sided a list of facts to get some reality into the Register's extremely smelly bowels with regard to Apple reporting. By all means post the counter facts. Facts are good, they help people understand things like the world, the market, how they can make money with their businesses or start-ups or whatever.

If reading any of the following really makes you feel uncomfortable, I suggest you either a) Post the salient facts which flatter Android (please, facts are good) or b) re-evaluate your life priorities, it's only a phone FFS (then again I have written this post, so, oh shit) or c) say something insulting, but make it funny. Insulting-funny is OK because everyone can have a laugh. Just please don't make it insulting-idiot :

Facts:

Only two international manufacturers profit from smartphones. Apple and Samsung. Apple make quite a lot more by way of profit. All the other international Android device manufacturers - about 5% of total market profits ! (though note: there are some new and very exciting Chinese manufacturers, who have taken a fork of Android and will probably market internationally soon).

Apple recently returned to being the largest company in the world when measured by market cap.

Once seasonal adjustments are taken into account, Apple have sold more handsets year-on-year every year since 2007. Their market share has gone down because of the the rapidity of the growth of Android, not because their (seasonally adjusted) sales have decreased. Quarterly results indicate sales will have softened this year, though it is clear sales dip between major releases and this year is exceptional for there having been no major Apple mobile product releases.

Profits are softening (e.g. the rate of increase has slowed) for both Apple and Samsung, both companies have warned the market is maturing. The fact Samsung has also issued this warning indicates many if not most of their increased sales are based on low-profit non-premium handsets - though this can't be confirmed because Samsung won't break down the sales figures (which in a way of course, confirms the case because the only reason not to provide the breakdown is if it is not so impressive).

Despite softening sales, the number of users for both platforms' continues to grow at a rate of knots.

Android user engagement is far, far lower than for iOS. (Non-fact/theory for why this is: The most excepted explanation is that this is because most Android purchases are for non-premium handsets at prices that were previously only touched feature phones. User's in these segments, buy the phone, probably like it very much, but are not so engaged so use the apps, Internet and services like email, IP video telephony etc. far less and no it isn't because hundreds of millions of Fandroids have been fiddling with user agent strings > sigh <).

Apple iPhones and iPads have higher overall satisfaction ratings than the handsets by any Android phone/tablet manufacturer - there is a recent report that contradicts this, but really it is one straw in a field of contradictory data and for many years the most respected standard for customer satisfaction in the US is the JD Power survey, which still has the iPhone out in front by a clear margin.

iPhones retain their value better than all Android devices - they lose a lower percentage of their initial retail purchase price (because users like them, want to keep them and younger users are prepared to pay more to get one back, even if it is second hand, should they have dropped and broken one), just check priceonomics.com to see

Revenues from Android remains lower for app developers - there are some exceptions of course, but they are few and far between.

Cost of development for Android, for those wishing to address the "full and larger market" is much higher than for iOS - for example the BBC has to spend approximately 3 times the amount developing for Android as for iOS.

More teenagers in the US express the desire to buy iPhones than Android phones, even though more are now purchasing Android phones because they can't afford iPhones.

There is more malware on Android and the Google Play store and zip on iOS

Significantly more Android users plan to switch to using iOS than iOS users want to switch to using Android (even Android Authority ran a piece detailing this is the case). This is one the more innumerate Fandroids can't get their heads round ("nah that can't be right - iOS market share is decreasing !)

There is a logical conclusion to this and that is after the initial flash growth due to Android in-filling the feature phone market by hitting feature phone price points, iOS market share will start to grow in relation to Android. NO shout the Fandroids. That simply can't happen ! I won't let the thought enter my mind. No, No, NOOOOO! But hang on what's this… Yes the latest data shows Android is starting to lose ground to iOS in what is now the most mature market - the US. Of course the same pattern is unlikely to develop anytime soon in maturing markets - if ever. But it is clearly a highly significant fact that the data is moving this way and (my extrapolation) other maturing markets in developed nations could soon be following suite. see http://www.asymco.com/2013/08/08/android-net-user-decline/ for more info

Now please post a lot of counter facts. ALL FACTS ARE GOOD. But also please understand, if The Register is the only place you get your data points about Apple (they've peaked I tell you!), you don't know the half of it.

Re: anyone know the breakdown

Of course "Of course the same pattern is unlikely to develop anytime soon in maturing markets - if ever" should have said "developing markets" - as in regions of the world not yet at developed nation economic and infrastructure levels.

re: ALL FACTS ARE GOOD.

You just spent a lot of time and presented many opinion pieces as facts. For example:

"Cost of development for Android, for those wishing to address the "full and larger market" is much higher than for iOS"

This is complete misinformation. I develop for both iOS and Android. If you said this a couple years ago, sure. But not today. Making an iOS app to work on all the different iDevice screens takes a lot more work than doing the same on Android because the Android API was designed to support multiple screen resolutions and aspect ratios from the ground up, vs the afterthought hacks in iOS. And if you are developing games and use unity3d, developing for iOS and Android takes exactly the same amount of time.

But there are some real facts that you are ignoring.

Android vs iOS is not Samsung vs Apple. Yes, Samsung is the most successful Android phone maker, but there are hundreds of others.

It's not all about smartphones, either. You can put Android on anything. TVs. Game consoles. Cars. Fridges. Watches. Glasses. And the best thing? Google doesn't have to do all the work. They don't have to develop a game console. Any other company can.

What Google did with Android is similar to what MS did with Windows: it can work on anything. Except Google took it to the next level.

Re: re: ALL FACTS ARE GOOD.

Yes it's a fact. Granted the degree of difference in costs depends on your size and objectives. I know why the BBC has to have a 3 times larger team for Android than iOS. My career has been spent managing the integration of TV software services on STB's as well as developing mobile apps. I'm well aware of the issues that crop up when porting to a new STB. In theory your OS abstracts you from the hardware, but in reality it never fully does. Do you really want me to enumerate all the ways an app can fail due to differences above the abstraction layer? It's always trivial, marginal, stuff that you feel should be of no consequence. But an exception is an exception, a null pointer relating to some hardware feature, a null pointer, a skin peculiarity that isn't Google's fault, a peculiarity, or maybe a simple human failing to apply the well worn defensive programming pattern properly when dealing with possible hardware or OS version API differences. And those things can stop your app dead or be responsible for horrible graphical glitches.

The main cost is encountered during testing. If you don't care to do full and comprehensive testing, then yes you can choose to deliver a lower quality assured app that will, in all probability, have unknown glitches on (many) devices. But then you don't have full quality assurance. You know it will run great on the S3 and S4 and other handsets with a larger share, but you don't know it will run great on everything else. You just hope it will.

Maybe that's good enough for you. It's not good enough for me, the BBC and other blue chip companies and it's really crap for users of the many, many marginal devices that are rarely tested (and which nevertheless make up a large part of the Android market). But they are a part of the Android user base. Or maybe we should reduce the market size to a subset that provides for comparable QA effort and therefore comparable costs? Then we can say it costs the same. However it will be a very large restriction to be sure the effort is no more than for iOS.

Re: re: ALL FACTS ARE GOOD.

Only two international manufacturers profit from smartphones. Apple and Samsung. Apple make quite a lot more by way of profit. All the other international Android device manufacturers - about 5% of total market profits ! (though note: there are some new and very exciting Chinese manufacturers, who have taken a fork of Android and will probably market internationally soon).

You are trying to claim that Lenovo, HTC, etc don't make a profit from their smartphones? While their market shares may be smaller than Apple and Sansumg, they still sell a lot of units at fair prices yet you claim that "it's a fact" that they don't profit? Back this up with their financial reports.

Revenues from Android remains lower for app developers - there are some exceptions of course, but they are few and far between.

This is true, but it is steadily improving. While Android (Google Play Store) prices have been necessarily lower, in part due to competition as it's easier/cheaper to compete on the Google Play Store there is more acceptance of paying for content as the content is getting better.

Cost of development for Android, for those wishing to address the "full and larger market" is much higher than for iOS - for example the BBC has to spend approximately 3 times the amount developing for Android as for iOS.

This says more about the BBC, who excel at idiotic inefficiency, than Android vs iOS development. As another poster has already noted, it is much harder to develop iOS applications efficiently for multiple resolutions compared to Android where this requirement and the supporting toolkit has been in place from the start.

teenagers in the US express the desire to buy iPhones than Android phones, even though more are now purchasing Android phones because they can't afford iPhones.

You've partly answered this already in your sentence. People, especially impressionable teenagers, aspire to what is just out of reach - this is a normal fact of life. The better question is to look at the appropriate market group that has the most disposable income, the "20-something" crowd. This group are able to sign mobile contracts on their own behalf, are usually a little more financially astute than teenagers are.

Significantly more Android users plan to switch to using iOS than iOS users want to switch to using Android (even Android Authority ran a piece detailing this is the case).

Depending on the exactly how this is reported, this is not surprising. Firstly, there are considerably more Android users than iOS therefore more are likely to want to switch (numbers vs percentage). Secondly, there are a lot of awful Android phone models out there compared to Apple's relatively low number of devices and (generally) good design and build.

"As another poster has already noted, it is much harder to develop iOS applications efficiently for multiple resolutions compared to Android where this requirement and the supporting toolkit has been in place from the start."

I let that poster's comment pass. Firstly I would take issue with the claim it is easier to develop for multiple resolutions on Android because I can see it's an opinion. One I can justify well, but one that will just lead to a religious war over what is the right way to do graphics. I will leave my answer as - just compare tablet apps between iOS and Android to see my point and why Apple's approach results in highest quality.

But on a technical note, iOS has implemented layout constraints for a couple of versions now, which make layout as flexible and auto-realizable as it is possible to be and can be expressed in many developer friendly ways including a visual string syntax, so you're out of date re the power of iOS layout constraints and their ease of implementation. It can all be done in the visual layout editor as well.

But on the point regarding fragmentation. It's a huge problem and developer cost. These charts give solid data which puts some perspective on the problem:

Re: re: ALL FACTS ARE GOOD.

Re: anyone know the breakdown

Apple do compete not just at the high end - because their sales area made up of older phones too, selling at lower prices.

Also note that whilst these figures include 100% of Apple's, they only included about half of Samsung's, because they're only counting the higher end "smart" phones (mainly Android) anyway. If we're including the low end, then there's a whole load more phones (which are still capable of Internet, apps, etc) that Samsung sell, putting them even further ahead.

Re: anyone know the breakdown

A Galaxy Mini may not be the high end of Android phones, but it easily beats the iphone 4/4S still on sale, so I don't see the difference, nor is it true that Apple are trying to keep things simple, or at the high end.

Not to mention that the S4 Mini actually has 50% more RAM, and I think the same resolution as the latest iphone 5...

Re: anyone know the breakdown

"Only two international manufacturers profit from smartphones. Apple and Samsung. Apple make quite a lot more by way of profit."

Who cares? Never in the most heated Windows vs Mac or Linux debate did someone go "but look how much money Bill makes!" Profit means money taken from consumers that doesn't go into the product. As a consumer, that's not a good thing. Same as a developer. The only reason to care is if you're a shareholder, in which case that's astroturfing.

"Apple recently returned to being the largest company in the world when measured by market cap."

Who cares? Another contrived statistic - what was the "largest" company before that, by that statistic? No one knows, because no one cares, except when the media pick up the press release and spread it as "news".

"Once seasonal adjustments are taken into account, Apple have sold more handsets year-on-year every year since 2007."

WP has gone up too - selling more in a rapidly growing market isn't that significant.

"Their market share has gone down because of the the rapidity of the growth of Android, not because their (seasonally adjusted) sales have decreased."

True, though note this is the same thing that was true of Symbian for years after 2007, but all we heard from the media was about how Nokia were doomed because of falling share, and how Apple were number one even though they weren't. It's annoying to see this fallacy - though fair's fair that it now bites Apple.

"Apple iPhones and iPads have higher overall satisfaction ratings than the handsets by any Android phone/tablet manufacturer"

You're actually making the argument that it's better, because the fans say it is? The RDF is well known - the fact that users of one platform blindly evangelise it, and others do not, doesn't make one better. Why aren't people flocking from Android to ios devices then, instead of the reverse?

"iPhones retain their value better than all Android devices"

So does an Amiga. Who cares, I can afford to buy the best, without worrying about what I sell it for - isn't that what we're told when people point out the prices of iphones?

Higher second hand sale prices is usually an indicator of lack of supply of newer products that people want. Same reason why it was easier to get better sale prices of old Macs or Amigas, when an older PC would be worthless. It's not that no one wanted PCs, it's that the rate of progress of PCs had moved way ahead.

"Revenues from Android remains lower for app developers"

I'd like to see a survey that includes ad revenue, and also looks at other stores too, both Android, and other platforms. But anyhow, from a user point of view, this is good - more apps at lower prices, or for free. Being able to make money from trivial apps is usually a sign of an immature platform.

"Cost of development for Android, for those wishing to address the "full and larger market" is much higher than for iOS"

SDK is free, and I can develop on my existing computer, and $25 one-off fee to publish to Google Play. For IOS, it's mandatory $99/year, and you need to purchase an Apple computer.

Even if developers restricted themselves to Touchwiz Samsung phones, they'd still have higher market share.

"More teenagers in the US express the desire to buy iPhones than Android phones, even though more are now purchasing Android phones because they can't afford iPhones."

But, they can sell them second hand, right? Which is it - is Android cheaper, or more expensive?

This kind of argument makes no sense anyway - sure, if I could get a £500 thing for £200, I'd want it, but that doesn't mean that the £500 is made by a better company. If the company had to drop prices, they'd also have to make sacrifices in the hardware too. The price is just as much a factor as anything else, like RAM or screen resolution. If Samsung can deliver the product people want at the price they can pay, that's a success for them.

Anyhow, this really is a contrived statistic - not just one country, but only teenagers? What about other countries, or adults in the US? Are you telling me that everyone would buy iphones, it's just that even in the richest country, adults can't afford it? Worldwide, I'm sure that even at the high end, Android is the winner. But stats like these just reward Apple for being expensive.

"There is more malware on Android and the Google Play store and zip on iOS"

Citation needed.

"Significantly more Android users plan to switch to using iOS than iOS users want to switch to using Android"

Wake me up when it happens.

"There is a logical conclusion to this and that is after the initial flash growth due to Android in-filling the feature phone market by hitting feature phone price points"

Android is a smartphone; the locked down ios phones are feature phones.

"Yes the latest data shows Android is starting to lose ground to iOS in what is now the most mature market - the US."

Most mature market? The US has always been Android's weakest market, and ios's strongest, and the phone market has always been very different to the rest of the world. But even in the US, Android grows (though with seasonal fluctuations). The US market typically lagged behind the rest of the world - which is why the US media were impressed in 2007 by a phone that didn't even do apps or 3G (something standard years earlier on low end feature phones).

This "Apple" company you speak of...

Could you clarify which one of these from history you mean from now on?

Its either the Beatles record label, or the one which shone briefly before fading back into nothingness, ending up as a pathetic patent troll claiming everyone copied their stuff. Oh, that's the one who copied the name of the first.

Re: This "Apple" company you speak of...

Yep. The same. The largest corporation in the world by market capitalization. The one named after a popular cultivar of a dessert fruit; coincidentally the same cultivar many others have named companies after.

Re: This "Apple" company you speak of...

Market capitalisation means precisely diddly squit; it is a number made up to impress people who do not understand the stock market.

Stock prices for anything which is not a commodity or a necessity of life are based on a mixture of perception and manipulation. This is because there are large amounts of money to be made by manipulation, and where the prey is, there will the vultures gather.

We have seen that Apple stocks were talked up to $700 plus last year with "analysts" talking about them going beyond $1000. They are currently around $500. During that period, Exxon has hardly moved.

The really significant point is how many of the shares are changing hands for cash. Market capitalisation is based on the idea that if you could sell all the shares tomorrow, that is how much money you would get for them. But the share price is probably based on the sale and purchase of quite small volumes of shares. If perception creates demand, prices go up. If nobody wants them, prices go down. In reality, if I had 50% of Apple shares and put them up for sale tomorrow, the price would collapse overnight. I would not be able to find buyers to put up $200 billion.

Apple is no doubt a valuable company. But its future worth is entirely dependent on how many people continue to buy its products, and it is in a fashion business which is fast maturing, where products have a typical life of 2-3 years. Microsoft and Oracle have huge lock in; the time and cost of replacing their products with others is enormous. Apple lock-in is much smaller; there are very few essential things that cannot continue to be done if an Apple product is simply replaced with that of a competitor. Market cap, therefore, doesn't mean anything for Apple.

Re: This "Apple" company you speak of...

Druthers

Were I a phone manufacturer, I'd much prefer to make fewer, higher margin items with continued tie-in sales than to sell a bunch at low margins. Going lowball in pricing is good for market share but historically hasn't done much positive for any companies. Those who aim for the ground end up being flogged off cheap after there's no money left.

Re: Druthers

I would disagree, I'd rather have a full production line producing low margins but guaranteed demand, than a factory having to wonder how many to produce next month. The old jewish business maxim applies, 1% of some thing is worth more than 100% of nothing.

Re: Druthers

Spare parts, warranty and rework costs increase in direct proportion to volume. Another business maxim, and the one I operate by is get as much as you can now with the least work possible. Free up equipment and personnel to turn out other high margin low volume product.

Re: @Don Jefe Druthers

You mean the company that wasn't sustainable and is being pulled off the public market and reorganizing around services because manufacturing at bottom dollar lost billions of dollars of people's money? That Dell?

Low margin, high volume businesses are good for a while but never last too awful long. They either fold up, are broken up (see Icahn and his ilk) or are purchased for brand recognition.

They can diversify, like Samsung has done, but the longevity of a given product family is only worthwhile for a limited time. Then they move on to something else. I'm not talking up Apple, I'm just stating that high margin low(er) volume businesses tend to stick around longer and deliver safe value and provide for their employees much better than low margin high volume companies.

Re: @Don Jefe Druthers

"You mean the company that wasn't sustainable and is being pulled off the public market and reorganizing around services because manufacturing at bottom dollar lost billions of dollars of people's money? That Dell?"

Dell has had a pretty good run over the last several decades and is only now attempting to reorganize because their core business is crumbling and they didn't move into mobile fast enough (Microsoft is feeling the same sting). I don't know if they'll survive or not, but they're a bit more than a flash in the pan.

Re: @Don Jefe Druthers

More than a flash in the pan, sure, but look who is buying them: High margin Microsoft...

Historically the lowball manufacturers are bought up at fire sale prices by companies who made enough money to run their businesses without being just $3.00 in the black all the time.

Low margins do not a 'good' business make. Those margins will generate some quick bucks but when those companies hit a revenue bump they've got no room to manuver. At the end of the day, the high margin manufacturers are still hiring staff while low margin manufacturers are forever on the lookout for ways to cut staff so they have enough cash to pay the electricity bills.

Re: Druthers

Apple aren't a volume manufacturer? 35 million iPhones sold last quarter would argue otherwise. They only sell iPhones? What about all those iPads, Macs and iPods then?

There's a difference between volume and market segment. The upper end of a market may support millions of sales, the lower end tens or hundreds or millions. The upper end is still were the big money is to be had, providing you can convince the public that there's extra value in your model compared to the run-of-the-mill.

Just the specs

I have to agree that Samsung is the worst. Compare any phone/tablet maker to Samsung and the features for Samsung phones completely kick butt. They have better displays, microSD, replaceable batteries, faster processors, and better form factors. Unfortunately, the Samsung phones are the least likely to work. Android developer forums and customer support forums are always full of complaints about Samsung devices failing due to firmware and electrical bugs. It's serious stuff like rapid battery death, radios going dead, touch screens malfunctioning, GPS not working, and intermittent cell reception. Their repair centers return the devices as "operating normally" when what you asked for was "working."

The story makes sense - all product categories will come to a saturation point unless new markets are opened.

ALL products. This is something that Wall Street, and Wall Street-driven companies, have tried to deny. Mostly by living in their own private fantasy world.

Apple's iPhone has only 3 models for sale: the 4, the 4s and the 5. With one of the newest, largest growing markets pretty much out of the picture - China, where the top carriers have dropped Apple due to excessive pricing - their option for a significantly new market is also out of the picture. Ever since the introduction of the iPhone series, their main market has been in Europe and North America and those customers who wanted an iPhone have long owned them. Upgraditis can only take you so far, especially considering the limited (3 phone) choices.

Same issue with the iPad: people who wanted one ran out to get one during its earlier years. Now? Existing markets are reaching saturation and limited new markets are coming on-line.

So where did Gartner get these numbers from? Samsung stopped reporting numbers two years ago. Apple may be the only one left reporting audited quarterly numbers including sell through to end users. And Netmarketshare still reports equal web activity for iPhone and Android.

Analysts are notorious for their numerical sorcery. They either cite privileged information or 'independent studies' for the bulk of their fictions.

Gartner and such firms are either dead on accurate, because they're using information that's publicly available to anyone, or they're way, way off base because they basically made that shit up.

Executives and reporters love them though because they can point fingers at them if something goes pear shaped and journalists don't have to do any studying, just reword the executive summary of the report and inject their own personal or editorial prejudices.